Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency
exchange, has recommenced processing its users’ withdrawals on the Bitcoin network
hours after halting the service.
Earlier on Monday, Binance founder and CEO
Changpeng Zhao, announced that the platform has temporarily paused Bitcoin
withdrawals on the platform
Zhao had explained that “a stuck transaction
causing a backlog” necessitated the action.
The co-founder in an initial Twitter post said
that the issue will be cleared in 30 minutes.
However, he later tweeted saying the impasse
would take a bit longer to fix.
This is only impacting the Bitcoin network. You can still withdraw Bitcoin on other networks like BEP-20. Likely this is going to take a bit longer to fix than my initial estimate. More updates soon. Thanks for your patience and understanding🙏
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) June 13, 2022
In a statement announcing the resumption of BTC withdrawals later on Monday, Binance said it was still
processing pending withdrawals.
“We are still working to process the pending
Bitcoin (BTC) network withdrawals, and this is estimated to be completed in the
next couple of hours,” the exchange said in an update.
“Please note that pending Bitcoin (BTC) network
withdrawals will be rejected. In this case, the relevant users will need to
resubmit their withdrawal requests,” Binance added.
More on the Backlog
Earliner, Zhao had said the halt on BTC
withdrawals only affected the Bitcoin network.
Zhao, who also pointed out that users could
still withdraw BTC from other networks like BEP-20, noted that all users’ funds
are in the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU).
While the BEP20 is a token standard deployed in
creating tokens on the Binance Smart Chain, SAFU is an emergency insurance
fund.
Binance established SAFU in July 2018 to protect
users’ funds.
The exchange’s action follows a similar measure
taken by Celsius, a crypto lending platform.
Celsius in an announcement on Monday said it was
pausing all withdrawals, swaps and transfers between accounts. The firm said
the decision was taken due to extreme volatility in the cryptocurrency market.
Crypto Crash
Bitcoin slumped by 14% at the beginning of the
new week. The cryptocurrency fell below $25,000—the lowest since
December 2020.
According to estimates, more than $200 billion
was lost in the cryptocurrency market during the crash.
TIME reports that the fall follows the release
of the May 2022 Consumer Price Index by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics
Over the past day, other top cryptocurrencies
have slumped between 15-25%. These include Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA),
Solana (SOL) and Dogecoin (DOGGE).
Meanwhile, last week Zhao disclosed that Binance
was after two licenses in the Philippines. These are the virtual asset service
provider (VASP) and the electronic money issuer (EMI) licenses.
Additionally, the US subsidiary of the exchange
recently launched a new staking platform, Binance.US Staking.
Binance.US
explained that the new staking platform comes with an ‘auto-restake’ feature
and enables users to stake a selection of tokens.
“Multiple supported Proof-of-Stake
cryptocurrencies are available immediately on Binance.US Staking, including Audius (AUDIO), Avalanche (AVAX), BNB, Cosmos (ATOM), Livepeer (LPT), Solana
(SOL) and The Graph (GRT), with more supported tokens being added to the
platform in the near future,” Binance said in a statement
This article was written by Solomon Oladipupo at www.financemagnates.com.
